2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

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Merc pace in clean air was good, though of course the setup seemed to be tailored towards wet weather.

[erudite450]

I did wonder about that, maybe the radio chatter was meant to tempt Alpine into pitting. LH was plainly faster, but unable to pass.

The Redbull pitwall would never sit idly while Verstappen is stuck behind a much slower car in such conditions. They should have brought Hamilton in. Alpine had no reason to pit Ocon when the cars behind him are not pitting but Mercedes are not racing Alpine. They should have given Hamilton a chance at a podium by giving him fresher tyres.

[chrisc90]

I did wonder about that, maybe the radio chatter was meant to tempt Alpine into pitting. LH was plainly faster, but unable to pass.

The Redbull pitwall would never sit idly while Verstappen is stuck behind a much slower car in such conditions. They should have brought Hamilton in. Alpine had no reason to pit Ocon when the cars behind him are not pitting but Mercedes are not racing Alpine. They should have given Hamilton a chance at a podium by giving him fresher tyres.

A podium was massively optimistic, considering Lewis would have had to make way through traffic and overtakes.


The big rear wing and wet weather gamble Merc tried didnt pay off today.

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I thought the radio was incredibly obviously trying to bait Ocon into pitting. Too obvious

[DGP123]

Completely agree. No chance Alpine were going to give up that fourth position, given their fight with McLaren.

Season overview

Qualifying H2H
Hamilton 11-7 Russell

Race H2H
Hamilton 8-10 Russell

Russell leads Hamilton by 27 points in WDC

[erudite450]

I did wonder about that, maybe the radio chatter was meant to tempt Alpine into pitting. LH was plainly faster, but unable to pass.

The Redbull pitwall would never sit idly while Verstappen is stuck behind a much slower car in such conditions. They should have brought Hamilton in. Alpine had no reason to pit Ocon when the cars behind him are not pitting but Mercedes are not racing Alpine. They should have given Hamilton a chance at a podium by giving him fresher tyres.

A podium was massively optimistic, considering Lewis would have had to make way through traffic and overtakes.


The big rear wing and wet weather gamble Merc tried didnt pay off today.

You cannot compare the Alpine with the cars Hamilton would have had to overtake. The Alpine was faster than the Mercedes in qualifying. With much fresher tyres, wet conditions and pace advantage of the Mercedes in those conditions, Hamilton would have at least gotten ahead of Ocon. I believe he could have capitalised on Leclerc's penalty.

[erudite450]

Completely agree. No chance Alpine were going to give up that fourth position, given their fight with McLaren.

Exactly!

[chrisc90]

The Redbull pitwall would never sit idly while Verstappen is stuck behind a much slower car in such conditions. They should have brought Hamilton in. Alpine had no reason to pit Ocon when the cars behind him are not pitting but Mercedes are not racing Alpine. They should have given Hamilton a chance at a podium by giving him fresher tyres.

A podium was massively optimistic, considering Lewis would have had to make way through traffic and overtakes.


The big rear wing and wet weather gamble Merc tried didnt pay off today.

You cannot compare the Alpine with the cars Hamilton would have had to overtake. The Alpine was faster than the Mercedes in qualifying. With much fresher tyres, wet conditions and pace advantage of the Mercedes in those conditions, Hamilton would have at least gotten ahead of Ocon. I believe he could have capitalised on Leclerc's penalty.

If the alpine was quicker than the Merc, then why didn't Alonso make any ground on the cars ahead of him when he pitted for a fresh inter?

Its evident from around 20-22mins remaining in the race. If Lewis pitted, bearing in mind the pitlane loss here is just over 22seconds, he would have come out about level with danny Ric in P12/13. That's behind Norris, Russell, Alonso. To say Lewis would have re-gained those 22seconds PLUS factoring in overtakes, AND closed a 8 second gap from Ocon to Charles AFTER his penalty is truly mind boggling.

Thats 21minutes to gain back over 30seconds of time difference. If you factor Lewis's BEST laptime of the whole race as a 1:45.5 (which was in the clear air before he caught Ocon) Lewis would have had to be faster than EVERYONE on the track by, 2.5seconds without any issue overtaking someone.

Laps remaining at 21mins at a 1min 45 race pace is 12laps.
30second deficit at 12 laps is 2.5seconds faster per lap.

Naturally there was a pace drop off even for Max who was lapping 1:47.5s, so Lewis would have had to have been 5 seconds per lap faster than Max on track.

Alonso pitted with 8mins 15 remaining, and his fastest lap was a 1:44.4.

[selvam_e2002]

As we know that FIA handover WDC to Max in Japan as Hoda home race with 1 and 2. it remembering watching ford vs Ferrari movie. Nice Job by Liberty and FIA.

Back to mercedes, are we still keeping hope with Mercedes to fight with RB next year? or it is game over till next rule change 2026.

[Just_a_fan]

I did wonder about that, maybe the radio chatter was meant to tempt Alpine into pitting. LH was plainly faster, but unable to pass.

The Redbull pitwall would never sit idly while Verstappen is stuck behind a much slower car in such conditions. They should have brought Hamilton in. Alpine had no reason to pit Ocon when the cars behind him are not pitting but Mercedes are not racing Alpine. They should have given Hamilton a chance at a podium by giving him fresher tyres.

A podium was massively optimistic, considering Lewis would have had to make way through traffic and overtakes.


The big rear wing and wet weather gamble Merc tried didnt pay off today.

It did and it didn't. He was obviously quicker than the Alpine and would have left him for dead had he been able to get by, but the Alpine has been fast in a straight line all season so it was always going to be difficult/impossible without a mistake by Ocon. However, if they'd run the Merc with less wing for more top speed, they'd have struggled to get close enough to put pressure on Ocon. Given the choice, you'd want to be able to catch and harass the guy ahead in to a mistake than be sat 2 seconds behind him but closing up briefly at the end of the straights.

Ocon drove really well under pressure for lots of laps - we've seen apparently better drivers succumb in such situation before, so well done to him for his drive today. It was good racing by him and Hamilton in conditions where a locked brake by either could have been disaster for both.

[DGP123]

Back to mercedes, are we still keeping hope with Mercedes to fight with RB next year? or it is game over till next rule change 2026.

Not overly optimistic. Era’s come and go, and Merc have lost a lot of heads. This concept would need one helluva leap forward over the winter, in order to reduce that gap to RB.

Hamilton still remaining hopeful, “I have no doubt we’ll have a better car next year. Whether or not we’ve rectified every issue we have this year, we’ll find out when we get there.”

Hope i’m wrong, but this just looks like the beginning of the RB/Vettel era all over again, this time with Newey mastering the ground effects etc.

[InsaneX_Badger]

Back to mercedes, are we still keeping hope with Mercedes to fight with RB next year? or it is game over till next rule change 2026.

Not overly optimistic. Era’s come and go, and Merc have lost a lot of heads. This concept would need one helluva leap forward over the winter, in order to reduce that gap to RB.

Hamilton still remaining hopeful, “I have no doubt we’ll have a better car next year. Whether or not we’ve rectified every issue we have this year, we’ll find out when we get there.”

Hope i’m wrong, but this just looks like the beginning of the RB/Vettel era all over again, this time with Newey mastering the ground effects etc.

Agreed. Can see Max having 5 championships by 2026. Him and RB are just such a strong combination, absolutely perfect for each other.

[Just_a_fan]

Back to mercedes, are we still keeping hope with Mercedes to fight with RB next year? or it is game over till next rule change 2026.

Not overly optimistic. Era’s come and go, and Merc have lost a lot of heads. This concept would need one helluva leap forward over the winter, in order to reduce that gap to RB.

Hamilton still remaining hopeful, “I have no doubt we’ll have a better car next year. Whether or not we’ve rectified every issue we have this year, we’ll find out when we get there.”

Hope i’m wrong, but this just looks like the beginning of the RB/Vettel era all over again, this time with Newey mastering the ground effects etc.

Agreed. Can see Max having 5 championships by 2026. Him and RB are just such a strong combination, absolutely perfect for each other.

Well his team mate won't be allowed to take one, so if the car is good enough, yes, he'll pick up more titles.

I do think that Merc's issue is as much the PU as the car. They agreed to Red Bull's requested engine freeze (because RBR wouldn't be able to develop without Honda) and then suddenly they are struggling for top speed (and Honda are apparently back). I think Toto was suckered by Horner and the Mercs will struggle going forward.

Having said that, I think Mercedes can bring performance next year that they've lacked this year. Give Lewis and George a sniff and they'll fight for the title. Ferrari, sadly, appear not to be able to do so these days, even with a quick car.

[chrisc90]

I dont think Merc have 'that' bad of a car. Its just one of those one of those, that are a bit like a petulant child. I think its more the aero concept that is costing them vastly on the higher speed sections of track, which is probably down to the wake hitting the rear tyres, rather than going around them.

Maybe the single mistake they made with this years car was the zero pod concept - I know James Allison did touch on one of those pivotal directions they chose when designing the car. Theres a decent chance that it was that.

Suspension wise I think they arent bad as they have got on top of that a LOT since Spa when the directive come out and probably a couple races prior when the car was much more less bouncy.

Of course, IF Mercedes do change their concept, just how much can they carry over from this season towards next. I imagine there will be things like airflow across the beam wings will be much more different between the 2 concepts of car, and probably even the airflow around the inner of the rear wheel and how the air is pushed outwards around the wheel/tyre aswell. Floor wise they might not need to make massive changes. If they have found the floor to be at fault - then I presume there could still be a small amount of budget to try and sort it for this season (Ferrari have brought new floors to Japan which is quite late on in the season.) the only other area for change is suspension wise, but as I said before, they seem to be on top of that now.

So it can only be one of those 3 areas, Side pods (or zeropods), floor or suspension. I cant think of any area off the top of my head that could cause them such a headache.

PU wise I think its just as much on par with everyone else, within a very small percentage 1 or 2%. Williams manage to get the good top speeds in the speed traps so would show its not the PU thats struggling.

[Sieper]

This might be the first year since the introduction of the hybrid engines we are actually within that 2% engine parity. Which is a good thing for F1. Next year the cars will already start to be closer (as the concepts are better understood and any flaws can be improved/removed).